Watch the season premiere of "United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell" this Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on CNN.
It's a four-letter word that led a gunman to commit the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history at Myers' place of worship, Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 Jews were killed on October 27, 2018.
And it's a word that fuels bigotry today, Myers said, from racism to anti-Semitism. He calls it "the h word."
Myers says he hasn't said the word "hate" since November 2018, when he was asked to speak at an event in Pittsburgh shortly after the shooting.
"I was mulling over what I could say that has not yet been said," Myers recalls. "And that's when the divine inspiration came to me: This is all about language."
Hatred, the rabbi says, is an obscenity. So he took a pledge to never say the word "hate" again and has invited others to do the same.
"We can't legislate it away," Myers says. "We have to be consciously willing to say: I am willing to change how I talk."
Myers, who appears in Sunday's premiere of "United Shades of America," spoke to CNN recently about dealing with the memories of the attack, his thoughts about the shooter and the rabbi's new mission from God.
What are you doing these days?
Like everybody else, it's Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting. I call myself a Zoombie. My religious services are all livestreamed, adult education classes over Zoom, meeting with congregants, sermons to write, speeches to record.
I've heard many people say they're busier now than they were prior to the pandemic, even though they're home all the time. There's no watercooler time. You're stuck in front of your computer for most of the day.
How often do you think about October 27, 2018?
I don't sit and specifically think about that day, but the reminders are all around. Any sensory input, it could be sights, sounds, smell, a touch of something -- any of those can trigger memories.
How are you dealing with those memories?
You learn how to integrate it into your life and deal with it so you don't become a victim as well. My faith is strong and I truly believe that somehow God wanted me to come to Pittsburgh for some peculiar reasons that God never explained to me. But I know that God wanted me to be here to help heal the community.
So your faith has gotten stronger since the shooting?
Yes, because God opened my eyes to a mission or set of missions that God wants me to do. But I'm also just continuing to muddle on as an ordinary human being. I just hope that when my time winds down God will be able to say thank you, in whatever way God says thank you.
Do you wrestle with the theodicy question: Why would a good and just God allow the shooting to happen?
I don't believe it's God who allows or disallows it to happen. God is the one we turn to in times of trouble to give us hope and to strengthen us. We all have choices and that's the choice (the shooter) made. I don't think God is in some divine control ro
